Welcome to my book blog created 2012 of books I read and review. I exhausted space on my other blog, Pat's Posts. Better to separate my readings from my writings. Eventually I will display my entire library here. I am in the process of moving some reviews from the other blog here as well. The design of this blog has been a work in progress, slowly, bear with me...

MY OTHER BLOG

If you got here because I commented and you were directed to this blog, it is because Blogger will not show both blogs. So you can get to my Pat's Posts, by clicking this link..my miscellany, the first blog while this is just about books.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Prince of Darkness by Shane White

Front cover

Published 2015, 316 pages, of which I only could slog through 100 before giving up reading further. This sounded like an interesting historical tale, but was very tiresome reading. Each of the 13 chapters has an interesting title to introduce the story, based on pg 12, "material drawn from the records generated by his serial court appointments." The author appears to have a solid background in literature and history of the times and includes interesting tidbits, as an effort to deposit the knowledge accumulated researching the main character.

Back cover

The opening was enticing, Chapter 1, The Invisible Man, page 1, "It was still dark when the reporter slipped into the Halls of Justice on Center Street, an architectural disaster known on account of its misguided inspiration as the Egyptian Tombs, or simply the Tombs, and glanced at the previous night's watch returns. His eye fixed on the entry for a small time criminal who preyed mostly on other blacks in and around the Five Points, by the early 1840's, the best known slum in the world. In truth there were scores of black con men just like him, living off their wits and a glib tongue." .. "What had caught his fancy was that this African American had taken the name John Jacob Astor." Page 2, excerpt, "Astor was one of the earliest individuals to whom contemporaries attached the novel description"millionaire". By the 1840's the word first used by Lord Byron in 1836, was well on its way to becoming an American label."..."And the joke worked because a black John Jacob Astor was an oxymoron." The author explains the book in the first 14 pages. Perhaps another author with greater story telling abilities could have written this with the limited facts in such a way to keep me reading. As I noted, lots of information scattered here and there, historical tidbits, but just could not hold my attention. Pages 67-69 describe slaves and indentured servants in New York City, "typically in the city, husband and wife had different owners--meant it was not at all unusual for one or more family members to remain enslaved for some time after their kin had achieved freedom...." Page 70 describes how court records detail, "involvement of very young African American females in violence against their owners. ...December 1811, an eight year old black servant girl having been whipped by her mistress, used a burning log from the kitchen fire to try and incinerate her owner's stables." .."arson was among the most atrocious of human offences." To me the book was very disappointing, lacked coherence and flow and I decided not to read further, too many other good books to read. Too bad, but it did not work trying to piece a tale from legal and court records. I give this only 1 *, and have donated it to the library sale.

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Open Book

Open Book

Your books

I found this scrap clipping clearing out paperwork, there is no author, I wished I'd written it but I didn't and I don't know who did: "Your books are your autobiography; they map your history, reflect your tastes, hold emotional moments between covers."

My rating system 5 *****

I am using a 5 star rating with 5 being excellent, the best read and 1 marginal....some books may not merit 1 star. Life is too short to waste on uninteresting books...or maybe my reading time is too short, or maybe I'm just too short. But there it is 1 low to 5 high.

I read books

“I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has

Book Drunkard Quote LM Reynolds

When you finish a book

When you finish a book

You are the books you read

You are the books you read

My other blog

This is the link to my other blog, where there are reviews of books I have read prior to 2012 as well as other writings http://patonlinenewtime.blogspot.com/

About Me

This is to record books I have read, sometimes my comments may be useful to others. However I set this blog up for tracking my own reads, and a way to not repurchase something I have already read. That purpose does not always work. I do not belong to any book clubs because I prefer to choose my own books to read and the book clubs I tried did not work out for me. I wanted discussion, about writing, authors, the concepts, etc instead all I heard was, "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" no depth of conversation, so I gave up. I have been a life long reader. I will say in retirement, I do not spend enough time just reading, as I imagined I would. My days are busy and so it is unusual for me to carve out time in the day to read, mostly I read for about half an hour prior to bed. Life is different than I thought it would be. .